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    Civil Procedure

    CIVIL PROCEDURE: Objecting to Requests for Production under the Federal Rules

    Posted by Paul A. Ferrer on May 8, 2017 at 9:54 AM

    Paul Ferrer, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

                Rule 34 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permits a party to request the responding party, within the scope of Rule 26(b), to produce for inspection designated documents and electronically stored information. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a)(1). The request for production must, among other things, "describe with reasonable particularity each item or category of items to be inspected." Id. R. 34(b)(1)(A).

                The responding party generally must respond within 30 days after being served with the request for production. Id. R. 34(b)(2)(A). Effective December 1, 2015, Rule 34(b)(2)(B) was amended to require that for each item or category of items requested, "the response must either state that inspection and related activities will be permitted as requested or state with specificity the grounds for objecting to the request, including the reasons." Id. R. 34(b)(2)(B) (emphasis added). The amendment to Rule 34(b)(2)(B) clarifies that general or boilerplate objections, such as that a request is harassing, are improper and result in a waiver of the unsupported objections. See, e.g., Leibovitz v. City of New York, No. 15-CV-546 (LGS) (HBP), 2017 WL 462515, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 3, 2017) (collecting cases); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 advisory comm. note to 2015 amend. ("This provision . . . eliminat[es] any doubt that less specific objections might be suitable under Rule 34.").

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    Topics: Fed. R. Civ. P. 34, request for production, reasonable particularity, discovery disputes, response to request

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